


Bluebird in Hiding

by quilledcorsair



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: TW : Mentions of Sexual Assault, cs angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 22:54:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12375828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quilledcorsair/pseuds/quilledcorsair
Summary: Vanessa Jones - happiest and luckiest girl in the world. But something happens that sends this bluebird into hiding. This is her journey back.TRIGGER WARNING : Mentions of Sexual Assault





	Bluebird in Hiding

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently bluebirds are symbols of happiness. And this will definitely make sense in the end. The fic draws majorly from my own personal experience, so please HEED THE TRIGGER WARNING. This was therapeutic for me, so if you don't want to read it, don't. There will be NO EXPLICIT SCENES. But there will be discussions about emotions and feelings and such.

“How are you feeling today, Vanessa?” Dr. Williams asks, her smile soft and encouraging.

Vanessa fidgets, pushing her glasses up her nose. She clears her throat, playing with the hem of her sweater, trying to put off answering the question. Every week Dr. Williams asks her that question, and every week she struggles to respond. Not because she doesn’t know what she wants to say, but because she doesn’t know how to say it.

“I’m alive. I’m healthy. Does that count?” Vanessa finally says, looking and meeting the psychologist’s gaze. 

Dr. Williams chuckles. “Of course it does. It also seems like you’re finally getting some sleep.”

“Eh, some. Not a lot.”

“Some is definitely better than none.” The therapist smiles. “You  _ look _ healthy, Vanessa. You’ve started taking care of yourself again. How does that make you feel?”

“I don’t know, healthy?” Vanessa shakes her head, trying again. “It felt good, this week. Waking up during day time, having breakfast with the family. It made things… _ normal _ .”

“And what  _ is _ normal to you, Vanessa?” Dr. William asks, a curious expression on her face.

Vanessa grows quiet for a moment, the question throwing her off. “I think – I felt happy. Like, I  _ allowed _ myself to be happy…?” she tapers off, ending in a questioning tone.

Dr. Williams’ smile grows wider, her eyes glowing like she finally got what she was looking for. “That’s good. That’s really good.” She pauses for a moment, noting Vanessa’s bewildered look at her own revelation. Dr. Williams shifts in her seat, uncrossing her legs and shifting forward slightly. “Do you want to tell me why that surprises you?”

Vanessa sighs loudly, frustration raising within her, making her tug on her long, chestnut locks. “What do you want me to tell you, doc?”

“You’ve been coming here for the past four weeks, Vanessa. And we have made a lot of progress, without a doubt. But maybe it’s time to talk about what really brought you here?”

“We did,” Vanessa argues, but her voice was soft, as if she knew she was stalling.

The soft, understanding smile never left Dr. Williams’ face. “I know you are scared to bring it up, and we can stop if you want. But sometimes, you need to go backwards  _ to  _ move forward.” Dr. Williams pauses, waiting for Vanessa to speak. But when it becomes clear that she isn’t going to, Dr. Williams clarifies. “You came out of your own volition, Vanessa. Therapy won’t work unless you are willing to work with me; there are no shortcuts. You said it yourself, you’re feeling better – happy, that’s the word you used. You said you missed that feeling. This is how you get it back, and I am going to help you every step of the way.” Dr. Williams takes in a deep breath, letting her words sink in. “Trust takes time, it’s okay,” she smiles reassuringly.

Vanessa tilts her head back against the couch she’s sitting on and closes her eyes, as she tries to center herself, breathing through the simmering panic, before she looks back at the woman sitting opposite her. “What do you want to know?”

“Why don’t we start with something simple? Why did you go to the party that night?” Dr. William questions, leaning back in her chair.

-/-

Vanessa walks outside Dr. Williams’ office after the appointment, her hands trembling slightly and her eyes red from the tears she’d shed. “I will see you next week, doc,” she says monotonously, turning to walk away, when she is called back.

“Vanessa, wait,” Dr. Williams stops her, holding out her hand. “I know today was hard, but I really do hope you will come back next week.”

“Don’t worry, doc. I don’t scare easy,” Vanessa says softly, smiling tightly before rushing outside. She looks around for a moment before spotting her sister’s yellow Bug, the one she’d inherited from their mother.

“Hey, sis,” Adrienne says in greeting, pulling out her earphones as she does so.

“Hey…Were you here long? I’m sorry,” Vanessa apologizes. “I thought I told you two p.m.?”

“You did. I finished my lunch early, and I don’t have to be back at the office until four. So, I came by early.”

Vanessa nods, mumbling a thank you before settling further in her seat. “I could have walked home.”

“It’s alright, Van. I don’t mind, really.”

Vanessa starts to say something, maybe argue, maybe protest, maybe just ask her sister to stop walking on eggshells around her. But she doesn’t. When the silence stretches on, Adrienne takes it as a cue to talk. “You know, dad suggested we go out on the water this weekend. It has been a while, and you love it out there. What do you think?”

Vanessa immediately wants to refuse, preferring to just stay at home. But remembering Dr. Williams’ suggestion (more like demand) for her to get out of her house, she agrees reluctantly.

“So, um, how is it going? Therapy? Did you- did you talk about that day?” Adrienne gently probes, watching her little sister from the corner of her eye.

Vanessa freezes, her hands gripping her seat tight, as she swallows back the tears. “It’s progressive, as it should be,” she replies vaguely.

“Van,” Adrienne sighs out. “Talk to me, sis. That’s what I’m here for. That’s what we all are here for.”

“What do you want me to say, Ad? I’m just- I don’t know what to say.” Vanessa stares out the window, biting the inside of her cheek to thwart the tears away.

“ _ Anything _ . I’m worried about you. So is everyone else. Dad is beside himself, he doesn’t sleep, did you know that? Mom told me. He sits outside your room all night.”

Vanessa sucks in a sharp breath at that, her heart breaking. She has always been close to her father, even more than she is with her mother. But she’s hardly said two words to him since she came back home a month ago. She just doesn’t know how to face him. Half the time, she doesn’t know how to face herself. She made a mistake - a stupid, thoughtless, careless mistake. And then she made an even bigger one. She has to forgive herself before she can bring herself to talk to her father. She can’t look him in the eye and see the disappointment there.

“I just made such a huge mess, Ad. I don’t know how to move past it,” she confesses, staring at her lap.

The car screeches to a halt, making Vanessa jerk in her seat. “Vanessa Jones, you listen to me right now,” Adrienne begins, vehemence colouring her tone. “You did nothing wrong.  _ Nothing _ . I will not let you blame yourself for this.”

“Ad-”

“No,” Adrienne cuts her off. “No. Self-blame will get you nowhere. You have got to forgive yourself, Van. You do. Because I love you, and I hate seeing you like this. I miss my nerdy and passionate little sister. I miss your laughter and your lame jokes. I miss  _ you _ . So much, Van. We all do.” At the end of her speech, Adrienne was close to tears, but her voice remained steady, unwilling to let her emotions get the best of her. 

That is the difference between Vanessa and Adrienne. Adrienne is exactly like Emma, always wanting to be strong and never let anything deter her. She doesn’t cry much, hardly expresses herself in words. She is all action. But Vanessa, on the other hand, is very much like her father - she feels all her emotions deeply. She has always felt a lot, and expresses all of it. And although she loves her family, and knows that they love her just as much, Vanessa has always felt like she was different from them. She hates swordplay, or fighting of any kind, really. She loves all the stories she’s heard about her parents’ adventures, but she never envies them for it, or yearns for her own like Henry or Adrienne do. She prefers to follow a more scholastic path, opting to spend her time with her Aunt Belle doing research rather that fight the monster of the week. 

Vanessa couldn’t help herself as a few tears trail down her cheeks. She’s so tired of reining everything in, so unused to it. She lets out a shuddering breath as Adrienne leans over the console to hug her, her older sister’s arms tight around her. “I’m sorry, Ad. I am trying to  _ fix  _ myself.”

“You’re not broken, Van,” Adrienne mumbles, running her fingers through her sister’s chestnut curls. “You just went through a horrible ordeal, but it did not break you. You’re a Jones girl. You’re as strong as they come.”

-/-

“Killian?” Emma calls, warily approaching her husband in his den. When he grumbles in reply, hardly raising his eyes from the book in his hand, she rolls her eyes, walking around his desk and to his side. “I’ve been calling you. Didn’t you hear me?”

Killian hums in response, eyes darting over the pages in the book. “Do you think getting Vanessa a puppy might help, love?” he asks, pausing in reading and looking up at her inquisitively.

Emma’s weariness fades, a melancholy falling over her. “Honey, you need to stop this. All Vanessa needs right now is our support. You can’t find the answers for this in books. You just need to be there for her.”

“How, Emma? She’s hardly said a word to me in weeks!”

“Did you try and talk to her? You need to let her know that she can come to you, Killian.”

“Let her know- Swan, I’m her father.  _ Of course _ she can come to me. Why would she ever think otherwise?” he sputters, tossing the book aside and getting up.

Emma hesitates for a moment too long, and her husband knows her well enough to catch her at it. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Emma sighs, urging him to sit back down, perching on the arm of his recliner. “She thinks she’s disappointed you – well, us, really. But even more you than me.”

Killian’s eyes widen, his heart constricting painfully. “She could never-” he cuts himself off, too distressed to continue. “What do we do, Swan? I- I don’t know how to help my own child,” he cries. He closes his eyes and leans back in his chair, despair radiating off of him in waves.

“I don’t know either, Killian,” Emma admits, pulling him up to face her. “But we will get through this. As a family.”

He nods, swiping at his eyes. “I never expected something like this to happen to Vanessa. She never goes to parties, she never drinks. She’s never even been on a date, as far as I know. She’s just- she’s been so-” He waves his hand around, trying to come up with something, anything to explain the injustice that happened to his little girl. And he failed. “I’ve failed her, Swan. I should have insisted that she learn how to defend herself.”

“Stop it, Killian Jones,” Emma say sternly. “I have my daughter blaming herself already, I don’t need her father to join the self-blame parade. The only person to blame here would be the guy who tried to hurt her.” She blinks back tears, her mind flashing back to the stormy night Vanessa had come home, drenched to the bone and her eyes haunted, brimming with unshed tears. “Did you hear what I said?  _ Tried  _ to hurt her. She got out of a bad situation, and she can get out of this too.”

Killian stares at her in awe, rendered speechless for a moment before he finds his voice. “How are you so strong for all of us? I just – I can’t imagine it, Emma. I can’t imagine how you feel, how Vanessa feels.”

“Talk to her,” Emma urges. “Your heart is restless, and that feeling you have? That feeling like you are struggling to hold on to something that is already out of your grasp? I  _ know _ that feeling, and it will not go away unless you talk to her.”

Killian takes in a shuddering breath, feeling the heavy weight in his chest, like boulders, hard and unrelenting. He nods finally, after a long moment, looking away from his wife’s piercing gaze and blinking away tears. 

A moment later, they hear the car pull in, signaling their daughters’ arrival. “Okay, be cool, alright? Don’t be weird around Vanessa,” Emma instructs her husband, raising an eyebrow when he dares to protest it. He ends up nodding, grumbling under his breath.

“Mom, we’re home!” Adrienne calls out, dumping her bag and coat at the end table next to the door, even as Vanessa hangs her own coat up, rolling her eyes at her sister.

“I’m starving, is there anything to eat?” Vanessa asks, beelining to the kitchen. It was only after a few long moments of rummaging through the fridge did she realise that no one had actually answered her. Turning to face her family again, she grew self-conscious about the way they were looking at her, with wide-eyed disbelief. “Um, what’s wrong, guys?” she asks, almost wary.

It takes them a moment, but her mother was the first to react, coming out her reverie and walking towards Vanessa. “Nothing, honey. Let me fix you a grilled cheese; that sound good?”

Vanessa nods, smiling gratefully at her mom. She moves toward her room, hoping to get some reading done, finally. She might have taken the semester off, but that doesn’t mean she should lag behind in her studies. Plus, she should probably make use of this new-found motivation before it dwindles again. But before she could retreat to the comfort of her room, her father stops her.

“Vanessa, love, could we speak?” he asks, his fingers reaching behind his ear in a typical Killian Jones nervous tick.

She turns around, one part of her hesitant – but the other, so very glad that he father made the first move and is starting the conversation. “Of course, dad,” she smiles, noting how he let out a barely concealed sigh of relief.

Once they move to the den and she takes a seat on the couch, she notices her father lingering before he sits on the armchair opposite her, instead of right next to her. Vanessa’s heart clenches in gratitude at his silent gesture, despite how unnecessary it is. Wanting to make the first move this time, Vanessa begins. “I know what you want to talk about, dad. It’s- it’s okay, you can ask me anything. I know I owe you an explanation.”

“You don’t owe me anything, love,” he protests vehemently. “I just want to know how you’re doing. We’ve barely spoken in the month you’ve been here, and I’m worried.” Despite how strongly he began, his speech tapers off to a mumble. 

Vanessa’s heart hurts to see her father so suddenly hesitant around her, as if she is a skittish, wounded animal. Or maybe that’s how he sees her, she wonders, the thought making her more angry than despaired. “You can stop treating me like I’m going to break in the next minute, dad,” she says, a hint of heat behind her words.

“Is that how you think I see you?” Killian asks incredulously. “My lass, you are strong. I have never once doubted that. Never.” His vehemence seems to shock Vanessa into speechlessness, her eyes going wide at the fierce look on her father’s face. “I’m worried because you are  _ too  _ strong. Or you think you need to be. You hold everything in, Vanessa, and it breaks my heart to see you confide in a stranger but not your own father. Now, I know I might not be wise or even as helpful as Dr. Williams is. But I’m your father- you used to tell me everything…” His voice breaks. “You used to tell me everything, Vanessa. What makes you think you can’t talk to me about this?”

“Dad…” She trails off, unable to form the words that are stuck in her throat. She wishes she could blurt everything out, but the fear that her actions would disappoint him made her hold back.

“Your mother told me you think you disappointed us? Is this true, darling?” he asks, surprising her yet again with his ability to practically read her mind. 

Vanessa stares down at her lap, her silence all the answer that he needed. When he begins to speak again, she cut him off. 

“Dad, don’t you see? I disappointed myself the most. I thought I was being brave, that I was stepping out of my comfort zone, because that’s what college is all about right? New experiences, new me?” She stares at him, wide-eyed and with a kind of desperation that makes her look wild. “I spent my entire freshmen year being closed off and by myself, and I wanted to change that. And when I met this guy, and he was exactly my type – I thought, well, why not? Why not give him a chance? He’s a postgrad, academic sort, he’s not one of those gross jocks who think partying all night is the cool thing.

“He was just so intellectual, the kinda guy that I could have conversation about Camu with. The kind of guy who doesn’t think Beethoven is the only composer to ever exist. He was just very textbook perfect, dad. And I fell for that – and I shouldn’t have, because all guys are after the same thing. No matter how much older they are. They are always after the same thing, and very much like the spider that caught the fly, he got me all tangled up in his web of sweet lies. So, yeah, I went with him to the party, and when he said he had a surprise for me in his room, I followed him, because I trusted him. And you did raise me better, and you raised me to be smarter – I  _ am _ smarter than that. Which is why I am so disappointed in myself…and that is why you should be disappointed in me too. Because I was raised better than that by the two most amazing parents, and I do not deserve your understanding.

“I might have gotten away from there – but it was not without consequence. I lost something I could never get back, and it’s a big deal, dad. I don’t know how to deal with this. Not without hating myself.”

Vanessa finishes, her breath stuttering and eyes filling up rapidly with tears that she holds back with sheer will.

Her resolve breaks the moment her father’s arms envelop around her slender form, his one hand cupping the back of her head, squeezing her a little too tightly. “Oh my darling girl,” he breathes out, his voice breaking with every shuddering breath Vanessa takes, trying to keep herself in control. “Oh, Vanessa. I-I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to protect you. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I am so proud of how you handled this – I love you so much, my littlest lass. I-” he cut himself off, his own emotions getting the best of him. He pulls back, holding her face in his palm, watching with great anguish as her lips tremble. 

“You, Vanessa Evelyn Jones, are the strongest person I know. I’ve seen your strength from the moment I held you in my arms, my wee lass. I love you, and I am so proud of you. It breaks my heart to see you hurt, to see you say such things about yourself. You are a  _ survivor _ , my love. You fight your demons, Vanessa, but you need not do that alone, you hear me? You have me, your mom, your sister – your whole, giant mess of a family.”

Vanessa finally lets the tears flow, squeezing her eyes shut and sobbing into her father’s chest, his strong arms enveloping her. “I don’t know how to move past this, daddy. I don’t know how to shut off my brain. I don’t know how to stop thinking about that night, or how his- how it felt, to be so trapped. I just want it to stop.”

Killian’s heartstrings feel like they are being pulled taut, his very soul seems to hurt, hearing his little girl sob her heart over a boy who took it apart. He wanted to find that bastard, and have him strung by his balls. He wanted to kill him. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t heal her wounds, but time will. His strong lass will make it through this – she is her mother’s daughter, after all. He runs his hand up and down her back in soothing circles, letting her cry all her tears out. Because he has no words that could bring her comfort, as much as he is loathe to admit it.

He looks up when he feels eyes on him, his gaze meeting Emma’s perplexed ones. “Van,” she mutters, rushing to her daughter’s side, slipping behind their daughter, holding her close. “Oh, kid.”

“Mom?”

“I’m here, Vanessa. We’re both here.”

-/-

It takes a while after that night for Vanessa to truly open up to her family, to deal with her trauma herself. She spends more time with her Aunt Belle as well, finding comfort in the musty library stacks, something to get her out of bed every morning, to keep her mind from running the same thing repeatedly. Slowly, and surely, she starts getting better. Smiling more and more each day. The weeks pass by quickly, and soon there’s just a couple of weeks left for a new semester to start. She is done hiding, and ready to get back on the saddle, so to speak.

She walks up to the den, knowing her father was probably looking over some of the older Greek tomes Aunt Belle had found, trying to translate them. She smiles for a moment, admiring her father as he concentrated on his work. He has been such a pillar of support through all her months of therapy, and if it was hard to accept that she no longer needs to go for her weekly sessions, it is going to harder to go back to a life where she didn’t have her family as a crutch. But she has to – and so she will. But before that, there was just one thing she must do.

“Hey, dad,” Vanessa says finally in greeting. “Wanna teach me how to throw a punch?”

 


End file.
